"Film Lawyers: Above anf Beyond the Law" and Rafter Ch. 5

I really enjoyed the article.  They mention that law films are chosen as a site for film because of the dramaturgical aspects of the law and legal process and the subtext of the law being a useful cloak under which many other themes can be played.  I also learned that the most covered theme played out in many law films is the portrayal of lawyers in these types of films.  Also, lawyers take on cases that they aren't going to win but then win anyways.  There is always some kind of miscarriage of justice and they show that not all lawyers are ethical. We find that we like seeing lawyers do unethical things because sometimes they are morally correct, for example in the book To Kill a Mocking Bird . 

Rafter Ch. 5
In the reading it mentions that most all courtroom films include a justice figure, a hero who tries to move man-made law ever closer to the ideal until it matches the justice template. Most trial films shown on tv are fictitious. Like in the Greenfield and Osborn reading there is always a bad lawyer or good lawyer trying bend the rules in some way.  This is were is makes is more dramatic for the audience. We want to see the people who do bad things, get punished in someways. Law films don't always involve lawyers and court rooms, like CSI for example, you never see them in a court room. When you watch a lot of law films, they always have people on trial for the worse things ever like, rape or murder.  We never see law films where someone is being put on trial for speeding or stealing someones car.  There are 3 historical evolution in courtroom films: The Law Noirs 1930s-1950s where we have detectives and experimentation a decade where they searched for ways of depicting legal struggles. The Heroic Tradition from 1950s-2060s where they had less character flaws. Depletion of the Genre, where we are less invested in the heroism films and less trial films.